PJ's and Keyboards

I have really enjoyed using Blogger.  I wish we would have started earlier on this site.  I think it would have been easier to keep up with the posts if I would have established a routine.  I can not seem to find time at school to blog.  I like sitting in my PJ's (not that I am doing that now) and blogging about whatever comes up.  I think I would like to use blogging in my classroom but I have no idea how to start it.  If only all my students had PGCPS email addresses, then I think the process would be easier.  I have the whole summer to come up with a plan for next year. 

I think I'm pretty much done!

So I think everything is in my wiki and everything is finished.  Let's hope I'm right because it is becoming too late to go back and change things.  

Frustrated!

This is a follow up to Jenni's post and my response about adding our powerpoint books to the wikispace. I tried a few ways to add the entire project, but it was just too big. Its sad because the kids worked so hard on it. I am glad that they wont see how much I had to cut out. 

Happy June

I can't believe its here! Seems like it took forever. Things are wrapping up at school. Book checkout is over and field days are this week. I have mixed feelings about my year in the Media Center. I loved most of it, but I missed having my own class of students and the bond that you make there. I also missed being able to hid in my classroom. I am a lot more visable up here.

Overall though I have really enjoyed it! I love new things and challenges. It was great getting to know more of the kids and get the chance to work with them.

In some ways it made STEP easier. In others it was more difficult. Speaking of this...let me go track down some kids now so I can finish up all of the loose ends on my projects!

MICCA

Another interesting website I recently started using is http://quizlet.com/. This is a tool for learning vocabulary. Just enter words and their definitions and Quizlet does the rest. In this specialized learning mode, students learn vocabulary through flashcards, games, and randomly generated tests. There are also collaboration tools for classmates to help each other study. I am using this site to develop science and social studies vocabulary for my ESOL students. They can become familiar and practice the vocabulary prior to the classroom lesson.

Powerpoint

I am having trouble uploading the powerpoint show to the Wiki. The error message states that I have exceeded the file size limit of 20MB. After I cut out most of the slides it uploaded. However, it wasn't much of a show after all the deletions. Any suggestions?

Powerpoint Artifact

So I was looking over the activity sheet for the artifact planning guide and noticed that it said 'You are required to have at least one completed ppt that is student or teacher created'. For some reason I thought we had to do two! Oh well that is good news!!!

Enrichment Zone Podcast

I had two students do a question and answer podcast using VoiceThread.  The students selected questions to research.  After coming up with about ten questions and answers, they  made a PowerPoint.  I made a copy of the PowerPoint in VoiceThread.  The students voiced comments.  Next week, two different students will do the same thing but using a different topic.  I added the podcast to the Wiki.  It is hard to find a quiet place to record.  I wish we had a fully staffed recording studio or better yet a sound proof room.

Craziness Continued...

This is day two on the Fact Flipper Project. I had the students write down their facts ahead of time so that they only had to type the information on the slides. They had a difficult time again trying to navigate through the new version of Power Point. I think I was expecting them to know more about this program than they actually do. I do not think it is very "Kid Friendly" either but we were able to get a few of the projects completed. Please note all the blood, sweat and tears that went into the final project when you gaze upon my Fact Flipper Project!

Almost over

I can't believe another year is almost over.  I am still working on getting everything put together.  I hope it is all the way it is supposed to.  Wow, the wedding is next weekend!!  Yay....I can't wait!!!  We pick the food out tomorrow!

ERRRR

I just erased a post. I was trying to figure out what week was what and messed it all up! Now I am annoyed. Enough for now.

Wiki posting overlap

We've had numerous instances where the students were working on the Wiki during a meeting but several students were adding to the same page at the same time. This resulted in several arduously-written articles being lost (a calamity to some students!). There is an error message displayed when this occurs but it's not clear how to proceed, so the students get quite frustrated. Our News Team meetings can be very productive and motivated sessions, but we need to resolve this problem. Has anyone gotten around this?

The End is Near

Ok, so we got the emails about almost being finished with STEP 2. Just a few more days to get everything together. I have a hard time with that part. I feel like I use the things that I have learned often in my teaching. I have a hard time pulling it together for a final product though. I end up with projects scattered everywhere. On several computers and flash drives. Some projects finished, others are not.

I think part of my problem this year is that I only see the kids for short periods of time. Last year in my classroom, if I ran over with something I could catch up later. Not so much this year with a teacher waiting at the door and another class ready to come in. 

Here is a question, with the blog requirements...does the number in the email refer to individual posts or is it a combination of posts and responses to others posts. 

Anyone know?

Fact Flippers Frustration

Today I made the mistake of thinking that making a Fact Flipper would be an easy assignment for my students. They have used Power Point before but they had a very difficult time following directions. I think my first mistake was working with the new version of Power Point. I had to take a little time to show them how to use the new features and they had a hard time following me. We were only making 12 slides. It took us 45 minutes to set up each slide with single word direction (what to type on it), a template of sorts. I am hoping we will be able to come back next week and complete the project. I hope they are able to do a better job of following directions. I will keep you posted.

Live posting can be cumbersome

Previously, at each News Team meeting I manipulate an Excel spreadsheet shown on the LCD as departments and article topics are discussed and assigned. Then I have been transferring the result of each meeting onto the Wiki. This week I tried to work directly on the Wiki during the meeting and cut out using Excel. However, having to Edit this Page and Save each time a change is made slowed down the process. We have such a brief time together that we lost some important time with this. I'll try again next week.

Space Powerpoint

I have to say I really enjoyed completing the powerpoint part of our project.  My students had a blast writing the words and then reading it to be recorded.  We now have a class book that they can go to and read on the computer.  It was so easy and fun!  Now I have to start thinking of how to put all of this together.  

PowerPoint

I had a lot of fun playing with PowerPoint in our session. I have been showing some classes how to add voices to slide shows already. I am really looking forward to doing more with the TAG group and PowerPoint. I think they will really like it. 

Now I just have to find the time to do it. Yikes. 

The Green Screen

After going to MICCA, I learned about the new features of iMovie '09.  They have a green screen effect.  You can tape students talking about a subject or even pretending they are out in a tropical jungle.  As long as you tape them in front of a green screen, you can add pictures or video behind them.  I cannot wait to get the new version of iMovie so that I can use this feature for video podcasts.

Powerpoint

Well, I put some photos and clip art in a powerpoint.  I am going to then print them out and have the students get into groups to write sentences to go with the pictures.  I am going to do this with the space unit we learned in science.  

Wow!  The wedding sure is getting closer.  Our response cards are due this weekend and we barely got any back.

Wiki shows students' lack of follow-through

I'm very frustrated with the News Team kids. Except for 2 sports articles, all other articles were due yesterday on the wiki and there are still many articles missing. I'll have to track the kids down and light a fire under them. However, I really like receiving an email each time a posting is made - I can click on the email message and it shows what the student has added or deleted without having to log into the wiki itself. Also, the history tab on each page has been very useful because in several instances students have inadvertently deleted someone else's article, so we could recover what was lost and carry on.

Powerpoint

My students are having fun adding their voices to powerpoint slides and making talking books. My first grade ESOL students are making a book about holiday celebrations in their native countries. They love recording their voices and playing it back. They are able to self check errors of speech. They worked with a partner to insert their voices. I thought they would have difficulty manipulating the computer, clicking the right buttons etc. but after I modeled it a few times they had no problems.

Powerpoint and Voicethreads

Well, my voicethread is taking longer then I thought.  I was hoping that the students were going to be able to move around by themselves after showing them.  Again they were forgetting to change the person that was speaking so it would show up as someone else.  Again this worked better with me sitting there and doing it for them....very time consuming!  I am excited about our session last night.  I love creating things like that.  I can't wait to get started on our project for that.  

PowerPoint features

Our training with John on advanced features of PowerPoint was interesting. Many of the skills he presented I had already used but it was good to get new ideas of how those tools can be used productively with students. I had never imported clip art into the PowerPoint library - I love that feature and wish I had found it or known about it long ago. Anyway, I'm thinking of purchasing Tammy Worcester's book on Ppt. She's a true wonder!

MICCA

I thoroughly enjoyed the conference again this year. There is always something new to discover as technology advances. I attended a presentation on web 2.0 and learned of several new cool widgets, gadgets and websites. For example, photo editing made fun at http://www.picnik.com. This site allows you to get creative with pictures by adding special effects, fonts, shapes, frames and other decorations to photos. I have been having lots of fun at this site. My students also enjoy customizing their pictures. Look carefully at our STEP team photo of the Beltsville Bulldogs. Our names have been artistically embroidered onto our green shirts thanks to picnik.

MICCA Ideas

MICCA was wonderful again this year. I enjoyed the Garage Band 9.0 session and will see if we can acquire the new Office 2008 for Mac for the laptops of our STEP team. Selena Ward from Benjamin Tasker always presents great new technology info in a fun, off-beat way. A couple of web sites she showed were quizlet.com, which allows teachers or students to make flashcards, blabberize.com, in which you can choose a face and the mouth can move to say whatever the student records (a use could be for historical characters, etc.), and xtranormal.com, in which you can type a script and actors act out the story with camera angles, gestures, expressions, etc. (like Hollywood?). To access her info, go to wallwisher.com/wall/MICCA2009

MICCA

This was my first year going to MICCA and I have to say I really enjoyed it.  The majority of the sessions I went to were very informative.  I am amazed at all of the technology out there.  It would be nice to have some of that in our classrooms.  The active slates were my favorite.  The clickers were pretty neat too.  That would make life so much easier.  Maybe even get kids that are too shy to respond.  I hope I get to go again next year!

Happy Feet!

I am glad I had the opportunity to participate in the MICCA convention again this year. I really get excited about learning new things and I can't wait to try it out in my classroom.

I learned about a free program called Community Clips that allows you to make voice recorded videos of your desktop and other Microsoft application such as Powerpoint. It seemed very easy to use but it is meant only to use on a PC! =(

I got a lot of good science and social students simulation websites and I have added some of them to my class Wikispace.=)

I know I really, really, really, really want the county to upgrade iMovie to '09 because it is soooooooooo cool!

Come to think of it, I saw a lot of things that I really want. I guess I have to hope for a miracle like winning the lottery...oh well, at least I have Happy Feet!!!

From MICCA

It was great to see the Beltsville STEP team taking advantage of the great opportunities at the MICCA conference in Baltimore.  Enjoy both days.

Froguts and Physical Science

I added simulations to the wiki so that students can practice science concepts.  They enjoy learning about the parts of a frog at Froguts.  I also added physical science simulations from PHET and Funderstanding.

STEP Tomorrow

This is the last day of my spring date. I have so much I wanted to accomplish this past week and most of it isn't done. I'm spending my whole day doing some intensive work setting up my podcast and working on my wiki. It's fun but I need to be painting!

To create banners on my STEP wiki pages, I created what I wanted as a headline in MS Word, then, using Apple/Shift/4 took screen shots. I launched Adobe Photoshop, then opened the screen shots on the desktop, changed the image size and saved as JPEG. These files were then imported into the wiki and could be resized there.

I did it myself!

I want to display more student work on my wikispace but I can not find the time.  I need to train my students to be more independent but when?  We need to have a training session for students, teach them how to use the equipment so that they can work alone in the classroom.  I have to spend a lot of time helping a student one on one and it is very time consuming at this point.  Maybe it will get easier down the road.  

Spring Break

Taking a chance to work on the computer, including SchoolMax attendance and grade managing prior to next week's report card window. I'm also getting fairly comfortable with this blogging, although it seems like a stream of consciousness activity/journal. STEP is next week and I'm giving more thought to the worthwhile use of a podcast. A student-recorded Pledge will be very useful but I'm not sure whether I also need to produce my own generated podcast or not. We have 2 different sets of instructions. We'll find out next week, I guess.

Spring Break

Well, I sure am enjoying my time off!  The invites went out on Saturday and I had my final dress fitting then.  I should be working more on my STEP projects but I am having too much fun catching up with people I haven't seen or talked to in a long time.  

Survey Gizmo

I added a quick survey to my wiki using Survey Gizmo.  I found it very user friendly.  I did notice you can not have too many questions when you are embedded it in to a page.  I only put three.  It records your results.  I am still looking around to see if I can find another survey site because I might need to make a longer survey next time.

Baby tomorrow!

Unless Marné has her baby today I get to spend tomorrow at the hospital waiting for my grandson to arrive. I wonder what his name will be?

I haven't spent much time this week thinking about the STEP team because I'm still deeply embroiled in MSA record-keeping, although a great deal of it is on my laptop. Thank goodness for Excel, and being able to scan the booklet barcodes has been fun (?) and worthwhile, albeit quirky.

Constellations

Well the students enjoyed create their own constellations.  I took pictures of every student and their picture although now I feel kinda overwhelmed with it.  That is a lot of pictures to upload.  I think I may just choose 4 students work and put them on there and let the rest of the class respond.  

Wiki comes through

We did our first day of News Team layout yesterday for our March/April issue. With MSA causing a 3-week delay in publishing, it gave the kids time to get all of the missing articles posted and all were there except Chris's 4th grade, which Elizabeth did for him. I would like to the reporters to control the font name and size on the wiki so the layout kids wouldn't have to adjust each article when placed in MS Word.

Tammy Time!

I have added a lot of new websites to my wikispace. I have gotten most of the websites from books that I bought from Tammy Worcester.  I added a link.  I just bought her new Google Book.

Voicethreads

I have decided to do one of my voicethreads on space.  I think I will have the students create their own constellations and then have them write a story about it.  I will take pictures of the students and then have the students respond about each one.  

Doll up Images

I found a fun website for making cool banners and animated pictures. It is called Image Chef.  You can embed images into your wikispace.  Check it out!

In the middle of MSA

MSA Reading has been given except for make-ups, and I'm getting ready for MSA Math. The 5 6th graders who took the Mod MSA online seemed to get along quite well, although it was certainly helpful to them to have one-on-one accommodators, online or not. As school test coordinator I'm really swamped with MSA right now and have had to cancel our News Team meeting this week. I encouraged the reporters to edit each other's articles carefully -- I sure hope they are. I haven't had time to check.

Voicethreads

I really enjoyed this session on voicethreads. It was something entirely new for me. It was interesting to view some examples of how other teachers were using voicethreads in their teaching. I think I am going to try and motivate book discussions with my ESOL families by utilizing the voicethread. Many of my parents are not participating in our oral presentations. I think they are not comfortable speaking in a large group setting. Allowing them to use a voicethread to discuss/comment on the books they are reading might be a more comfortable setting for them.

Voicethreads

Well, last weeks session helped some what to come up with an idea.  I know now I want to keep it all together with science related stuff.  This has been one area I have struggled with in fitting in to our schedule.  We are having an upcoming unit on space so maybe I will do some of my voicethreading on that.

The hair trial didn't work out....I have to go back tomorrow because the stylist had to purchase some more stuff for my hair.

Uh oh!

WI just checked the history section of some key pages of our News Team wiki and found that students have deleted each articles and/or made erroneous changes to them. Knowing which students did this tells me that it was accidental. However, a student told me yesterday that her article had disappeared from the wiki, and sure enough, it did! I'll track this down, talk to the offender on Monday, and discuss it with the whole team as soon as I can.

Will It Sink or Float

I completed my first podcast using VoiceThread.  I posted questions and had the students discuss the answers in small groups.  Then, I had one person from each group record their answers to the questions.  Next, we completed an experiment on density.  I took photographs and then added them to my VoiceThread Project.  Finally, I had students respond to the remainder of the questions.  I was able to figure out what concepts they understood and what concepts needed more work.

Learning about Podcasting

We just learned about podcasting today.  I am really excited about using this in my classroom.  It was not what I thought it would be.  We learned about a website called VoiceThread.  I want to do a science-related podcast.  I have to do an assignment for a educational class so I will try to kill two birds with one stone.  Wish me luck!

Podcasting session

Podcasting was interesting today. I can see how it could be a very useful tool in a regular classroom for lots of content areas. It will be a challenge to work it into my News Team project, but since this is the only group of students I can call "mine," other than the keyboarders, I'm sure something will come to mind. It was funny how self-conscious the BES STEP teachers were -- we pretty much chose to type our responses, rather than speaking them. I noticed that teachers from other schools were more vocal -- I recognized good ole Robert Beaumier's enthusiastic voice. He's always upbeat.

Welcome to Beltsville's STEP Team Blog!

Hey Beltsville Bulldogs!

This is our STEP team blog. We are going to use this one blog to jointly communicate our experiences from this year's program. This is also where you can add/repost your previously written blogs (remember to put labels on them so they can be sorted). I look forward to communicating with you. Go Bulldogs!

Busy

What a busy week.  Not sure if I am going to get on to post later this week so I figured I better do it now.  I had my dress fitting on Saturday.....the seamstress I to cut my dress down 4 1/2 inches....yay!  At least they didn't have to add fabric!  Tomorrow is our STEP meeting.  I believe someone is coming to show us more about wikispaces and about our voicethreads.  I sure hope to get some ideas from there I am really at a loss of what to do with my 2nd graders.  Then, Thursday I have a hair trial for the wedding.  My hair is so difficult I have been dreading this!

Adding New Items

I have been adding and changing things in my classroom wiki almost on a daily basis.  I needed a way to let students know what I added or what is new.  I decided to add a new button to home page.  After I found a good image, I added a caption telling the name of the new item that I added.  I then link the new button to the page.  It has been a big hit with my class.

Birthday!

Happy Birthday Melissa! Perhaps your kids could wish you a happy birthday on your classroom wiki! Hehe. Have a fantastic day! 

On a STEP related note...I have on my calendar that we are meeting on Tuesday. I know Tia must miss us.

Anyone having more trouble with kids messaging the entire group on the wikis? I think the one girl of mine that did it really had no clue what she had done. I need to remember to talk about that with the kids next year or time I start a new wiki. I will add it to the ever growing list.

Another Happy Birthday!

Hey Steph, happy birthday to you too!  It cracks me up that every year we get the same comments.  Yes, our birthdays are the same day and we were born at the same hospital.  I was just a few years ahead of you.  ;)  I'm sure craving a cupcake.....we need to go again soon.  

On another note I'm going for my first fitting for my wedding gown on Saturday!!  Yay!!  I'm soooo excited!!

Still not much done on my wiki.

STEP meeting next week - working on wiki

Working on my STEP wiki, creating the page to link to the News Team wiki. Including summaries, technology standards, banners, etc. Lots of work but it's good for me to be learning new things and using them often enough to remember them.

Practice Test Taking

When we went to computer lab today, my class practiced test taking with a new website.  I really thought it was good.  I added it to the wiki so that my students can practice at home or during reading center time.  The website is Surweb.  You should check it out.

Fun Place

 Fun Place is where I put all the approved websites.  This a list of websites that I have used or I have learned about from other teachers.  It allows the students to try different activities with out searching the web.  I do not have to worry about a student stubbing into an unapproved website.

Webquest

 I wanted my students to do a animal webquest.  I was not willing to take on making one just yet.  I searched for webquests online and found one that followed the curriculum.  A webquest allows students to research information from websites that you have checked and linked together.  I had my students research animals which supplemented what I was teaching in the classroom.

Not much done

I have to say I haven't been using my wiki at all this week.  The kids have all of their passwords all written down in their planners but, for some reason even though they have it written down they are having trouble typing it in.  Maybe they just need more practice with typing.  When I type in their passwords and user names it works.

Literature Time

 I added more books to the reading section to my wiki.  I found the pictures of the books online and then I inserted the images.  I found it very difficult to arrange the pictures of the books on the wiki page.  We a lot of trial and error I finally got them to stay in a straight line.  

Wiki needs more entries

Today was the first deadline for our next newspaper and many articles were due. Unfortunately, there were quite a few missing articles. As usual, a few kids are gung-ho and posted their articles well and early. Sometimes it's surprising that the gung-ho kids are the ones I'd predict to be. I was hoping that the students would really like using the wiki and would get on the band wagon. I must remember that these kids are children who aren't necessarily self-starters, and who didn't really know what was expected when they volunteered for the News Team. I must be more creative with my incentives, and possibly make them more competitive with each other. I still think the wiki is a big improvement over all other former article submission methods.

Technology marches on

This morning was MOD-MSA online training at Dr. Henry Wise High School, and then I went on to John Jennings's zone tech liaison's meeting at Tulip Grove. Everything was hands-on, which is always a good thing if managed well. It's easy for the presenter to lose his/her audience if they start pursuing their own interests, checking email, etc. However, it's so much better to try out what is being presented while the leader is available to help with any confusion or other difficulties. It takes very careful planning of the PD session to carry this off. The morning session was led by Teresa O'Connor and Joan Rothgeb. Both were excellent - highly knowledgeable, approachable, and efficient, so it was a very useful session. John is always very well prepared for his sessions and sprinkles in a good dose of humor and humility, so the meetings are very worthwhile. He seems to have a good handle on what's going on in the county and how to effectively balance our directives with our workload

Discussions

I started my discussion board.  I had the students watch a video about tornadoes.  The first assignment asked them to write about something they learned.  That topic generated over 40 posts. I did make scenic avatars for each of the students because I did not like looking at the same dull face picture.  I think it adds a little something with the avatars.

President's Day

Another holiday off!!  I really like short weeks at school.  Well, the students posted on my wikispace last week.  It was okay but I had to sit with the majority of the students to help them.  I think by the end of the year this will get better but it kind of a pain teaching them how to use it.  It is just too time consuming.  

Another STEP meeting

We had our 2nd meeting last night.  Still working on my wiki.  I'm going ask the students what they thought of the dinosaur video.  I just want to see if they are going to be able to use it on their own.  The kids enjoy being on the computer of course.  I'm just not sure whether they can access the wiki easily by themselves.  

New departments for News Team

The News Team has put out 2 issues with the original department assignments, so we chose new departments today for the next 2 issues. It worked out unusually well, with few students disappointed with the end result. Thank goodness for the random number generator. We were able to refer to the old department assignments in the wiki for reference, so that was helpful once again.

Adding Class

I decided the my class needed email accounts to participate in discussion on the wiki.  I used the user creator and made usernames and passwords for all the students I teach.  The passwords are all the same so that I can check to make sure they are not abusing the privilege of having an account.  I have had a few students email everyone that is a member instead of the one person they wanted to reach.  I told them I will change their email password if I see anything that is not appropriate for school.  I also gave the student's username and password to parents when they asked for their child's information so that they could monitor as well.

Sneakin' a Video

My class just loves Bill Nye the Science Guy so I decided to add videos to the wiki.

 I started by searching YouTube.  I found the video segment I wanted to embed and I used the instructions to the left. Unfortunately, there is a "search for other video" request after the clip is over.  I had to take off the clip in a hurry when I saw my students searching other videos on YouTube.

I found a safer site at TeacherTube.  You can pick an option that does not allow you to search other videos.  I think YouTube has a better selection of clips but I have to keep my students safe.

PreK-8 transition meeting last night

Last night was the meeting at BES to present the current plans to change our school into PreK-7 next year; preK-8 the following. The meeting was mainly a question-and-answer session with Steve (and Leslie) answering questions raised by parents in the cafeteria. The meeting was fairly well attended by both English and Spanish-speaking parents, although the attendance was small compared to the total number of parents for our school. I guess the parents of preimary students either think things will change by the time their student gets to that grade (maybe) or they'll have moved to a different town by then. Who knows? The meeting was very civil -- no one was confrontational or asked awkward questions. One key question that wasn't raised was whether Steve will still be at BES next year. That's crucial and nobody asked it. At any rate, PowerPoint could have been used to show areas of the building being discussed (locker rooms, science rooms) but under the circumstances it probably wouldn't have been worth the trouble to create it. It's kind of a relief not to be looking at a screen at every meeting.

Wedding cake and Wiki

Had my wedding cake tasting yesterday.  Yummy!!!  It was so hard to pick a flavor because I liked them all!  We both decided on yellow cake with vanilla bean icing.  I sure hope we get a piece at the wedding.  Now to decide whether buttercream or fondant icing????  Hmmm.....I'll have to think about that one.  I did put my video on my wikispace.  I then showed the students how to access it with my laptop and projector.  About half the students were able to get on to watch the video and half needed my help.  Next week I will try to have them post responses to a question.

Slide Show

I added a slide show to my wikispace using SLIDE.  I thought it was really easy to use.  My students made animal habitats.  Then, they took pictures of their projects and I uploaded them in a slide show.  I decided not to add music because I really did not think there was a good selection.

Wiki Decision

Well, after a lot of thought on what to put on my wiki, I have decided to just put a video.  I have found a dinosaur video that does not have any words on it.  I will have the kids first give their opinions on it and hopefully later on have them wright a summary of the video.  Not only is it science but reading and writing also!  

FIRE!!!

I changed the headline of my front page to an animated banner.  I picked flaming text from ummm...Flaming Text.com.  The class loved the change and so did I.

This and that

Geography Bee last night went well. We had to put the program together quickly at the last minute and we weren't sure which adults would be available. No Patty Robeson -- it just didn't seem right, although we carried on OK anyway. Pete Odell made an excellent judge for the second year in a row.

Our practice MSA tests went OK. There's certainly a lot of work to setting all of them up with appropriate accommodations. It will be interesting to see how the students do on the real tests, particularly the online Mod MSA. Since it's presented by the same Pearson Access that the online science was last year, it should work dependably. However, how much science do the students really know?

It seems like a long time between STEP sessions. This year (#2 for the school, if not for me) doesn't seem nearly as heavy in participant requirements as last, although it's also not rich in hardware benefits. I'm sure we'll be glad we entered, although it's hard to keep up the enthusiasm with such long gaps between sessions.

Banners

Another site for making banners and logos is http://www.cooltext.com/ It also has a free graphics generator. Very similar to flaming text. 

Banner Decision

I really like the Flaming Text website. I decided to all my banners using this site. My favorite type of headlines are the animated ones. I used one of each on different pages of my wiki. I decided to embed the headlines/banners so I registered as a member of Flaming Text. I have been really happy with their product so far.

BEAT

Holy Smokes. I am beat. I think being in my friends wedding was worse than my own. I am exhausted. You would think with the long holiday weekend I would have recovered. Not so much. 

I had really hoped to get some work started for the kids using the wikispace more. Eh. Maybe next week. I really want to try and focus some ideas. I feel like I need a big idea board. Does Oprah have one of those? Maybe she calls it an inspiration board. I'm not sure. 

All I know is that I am tired and have about a million ideas running around in my head right now.

Holidays

It was sure nice having off Monday and Tuesday for Martin Luther King's birthday and for the Inauguration of Barak O Bama.  It was pretty neat to watch everything unfold on T.V. and to see all of those people on the mall.  I know a few of my fellow teachers went it said it was amazing.  I will take a 4 day weekend any day!

Inauguration Day

President Barak Obama. Who would ever have guessed?... What will that mean for technology? For education? For testing? For the economy? I guess time will tell.

WIKI Accounts

I created user accounts for all my parents participating in our audio lending library project. As most of them do not have e-mail accounts they were very pleased to be able to access the wikispace from any computer with their user account and password. They use the school computers as well as the public library. It has motivated families to visit their community library together. Each family has their own page which they can edit and upload videos to share with others in the program.

Release Me!

I have talked to all my parents about using their child's photo or voice online. I only have two parents that would not give permission for their child to participate in these activities. I have been very careful not to capture their images or voices on any project we do.

Google Earth for Geo Team

Since the Computer Lab windows are back in and the Geography Team can meet in our room instead of in the library, we had the students using Google Earth. After I demo-ed it, I had the kids, working in pairs, locating specific places around the world and taking screen shots of a list of places. Then they inserted one of their shots into a MS Word document and wrote a few sentences about that place. Not bad for 30 minutes! As you would expect, a few kids were very knowledgeable about Google Earth, while most had never used it. Good hands-on approach for continents, countries, landforms, landmarks, etc.

Wiki

Well, last night we set up our wikispace.  I'm still not really sure what it is i want to do with it.  At the moment I am thinking of doing something with science, but I'm not really sure.  I am having trouble trying to figure out how to use it with second graders.  I feel like it is going to be hard for them how to figure out what to do if I'm not there and obviously I can't be there with every child to show them how to do it on their own.  

What should I blog about?

I have nothing to say. The holidays are over and school is back in session. Big tests are coming so I'll be using technology for that, rather than for direct instruction of students. Bleak mid-winter...

Improving the Wiki

I signed up for a Wikispace to use in my classroom. I wanted to have a safe place for my students to go and do research on the web. I started out with home, reading, science, fun place and essay pages.

On the reading page, I featured information about the book The Mouse and The Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary, including a quiz I found online.

On the science page, I added pictures of animals that linked to information. On the fun place and essay pages, I linked websites so that students could nagivate to approved websites more easily.

Next meeting

Well, it's a new year and I'm looking forward to our next meeting.  I'm excited to learn something new.  We are still having issues with blogging.  I sure hope there is no limit to the words we need to post in these blogs!  If there is I guess I'm in trouble!

Happy New Year

'Twas a lovely holiday season. I wonder what it will be like with a baby next year? I wonder what technology will be like by the time he's my age. Kinda scary!

I'm keeping these "postings" for when we can actually put them somewhere. Our initial STEP meeting was "interesting" at Ammendale but we need to meet again soon so as not to let the enthusiasm drop. Still, it was an honor to be chosen and we BES'ers need to have a good showing for our school.